Thank you. Please be seated. And as we do so, let us read from Genesis and Chapter 6. We will read the whole chapter. Genesis and Chapter 6. If you are there, we commence reading. When man began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the sons of man were attractive, and they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh, his days shall be one hundred and twenty years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood, make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with peach. This is how you are to make it. The length of the ark, 300 cubits. Its breadth, 50 cubits. And its height, 30 cubits. Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above, and set the door of the ark in its side. Make it with lower, second, and third decks. For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. everything that is on the earth shall die, and my text for today. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wives, and your sons' wives with you. And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female, of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, and of every creeping thing on the ground according to its kind. of every sort shall come in to you to keep them alive. Also, take with you every sort of food that is eaten, and store it up. It shall serve as food for you and for them. Noah did this. He did all that God commanded him. Well, brethren, we come to yet another installment in a series of messages on the subject of faithfulness. We began at the beginning of this year, strictly speaking, dealing with this subject. And although we ought to have begun in Genesis because of events that occurred, the death of one of our members, We began later on in the Gospel of Matthew looking at some, the rewards of faithfulness because we were dealing with a saint that had departed from this life. However, after that we have gone back to Genesis and began appropriately. And two things that we have noticed thus far, first of all, is that in fact, faithfulness is of the very essence of our relationship with God. And consequently, when God made our first parents, the first thing He did was to enter into a covenant relationship with them. And like all covenants, they had the blessings of keeping the covenant, and there was also the penalty of a failure to keep that covenant. And God, as it were, went away from them, and they were supposed to keep that agreement. Well, we went on to see later on that they didn't keep the agreement. Eve visited a place within the center of the Garden of Eden. The serpent was used of Satan to tempt her. She began to look at this fruit, forgot that she is in a covenant relationship with God, as of utmost importance. And consequently, she ate of the fruit, and we have paid for it since. What we go on to do now is to look at God himself as an example of faithfulness. We've just seen how Eve, and of course Adam with her, became unfaithful to God. And when we're studying that, in many ways, we saw ourselves reflected in these two individuals. Because often, when we are alone, we are unfaithful to God. And when we are away from one another, we are unfaithful to one another. But what we notice about God, which we will look at in a few minutes, is that God remains faithful. We have been meditating a little earlier on the fact that God does not change. When he has made his promises, he sticks to them. It doesn't matter what is going to come. He remains faithful. In fact, as the Apostle Paul goes on to say later on, when we become unfaithful to him, he still remains faithful because he can never become unfaithful to himself. And this is what I want us to notice together here, and I trust that It is because of this reality that God is faithful and remains faithful that you and I have come to trust Him for our salvation. We have, as it were, placed into His hands our eternal welfare, and we don't even need to look there. We are busy, as it were, serving Him, knowing that when we have breathed our last, He will keep to His covenant and bring us into His heaven because we have repented of our sins and we have trusted in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as our only hope of salvation. Very well then, let's go back to verse 18 of our Bible reading. We are told there God spoke these words to Noah, that I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you. The principle that we are learning out of this is that in the midst of a fallen and sinful world, God always has a people whom He deliberately rescues primarily because they find favor with Him. And this is the only way in which we can explain Noah himself. We notice very quickly back in our passage, a little earlier on, that Noah is described this way in verse 9. Maybe I'll include verse 8 because it is a statement that is clearly setting the tone. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. And then we notice in verse 11 that the earth was corrupt in God's sight, the earth was filled with violence. What is it that made Noah stand out compared to the environment that he was in? Is it simply because he was born different from everybody else? Is it because he was brought up very well by his parents? Is this something that was just natural to him? Well, when you read the Bible, it is very clear that the first act The distinguished Noah from everybody else lies in those words, Noah found favour in the eyes of God. Verse 8 precedes verse 9. In other words, God did something for Noah. And I'll come to a verse or two in a moment to show what that is. And that which God did for Noah is what produced the kind of life that was now in Noah, that distinguished him from everybody else. And perhaps the best passage to help us appreciate that is Romans 11, verse 3 to verse 6. Romans 11. Now, in that passage, we have Paul looking at the whole question, why have most Israelites rejected the Gospel? And I want you to notice his answer. His answer there is that those whom God has chosen have not rejected the gospel. And in the midst of the almost total rejection of the gospel, God, and this is the point, by His grace, has kept a few of the people for Himself. He's made them walk against the wind that is blowing in their community. He has made them different from everybody else. And it has been an act of grace on his part. Verse 3. Maybe, let me begin from verse 1, just to provide the context. I ask then, has God rejected his people? By no means. For I myself am an Israelite, A descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people, listen to this, whom he foreknew. And as we've already said, this is not simply God knowing that these people will exist, but God loving them, having special attention for them, favoring them other than others Because if you simply say for knowing, well God in that sense knows everybody He goes on to say, do you not know what the scriptures say of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel, and then where our reading was supposed to commence? Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left and they seek my face. That's what Elijah thought, that he was the only survivor. But listen to this, But what is God's reply to him? I have kept for myself. Who is the active agent? God himself. I have kept for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Elijah, you are not the only one. There are 7,000 others They may not be as visible as you'd like them to be, but they are there faithful to me. They've refused to bow their knees to bow. What makes the difference, verse 5 and verse 6? So too, at the present time, there is a remnant, listen, chosen by grace. That's what makes the difference. And he goes on to say, but if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of words. So it's not because of who they are that God has chosen them. It is because of grace that they are what they are. And then he says, otherwise grace would no longer be grace. Alright, so clearly here, it is the grace of God upon Noah, the favor of God upon Noah, that then produced somebody who was blameless, who was righteous, who was walking with God. What are we learning from there? It is this, that if you want to know whether the favor of God is upon you, whether the grace of God is upon you. It's not by peeping into the books of heaven to see whether your name is on the book of life there. You will never have the opportunity to peep there until you are already in eternity and on the judgment day. How do you know that the grace of God and the favor of God is upon you. It is this, that you will be spiritually and morally different from everybody else around you. that while the wind in your community, in your society, in your home, in your workplace, wherever it might be, while the wind is blowing in the direction of immorality, corruption, evil, and wickedness, and everybody's going there, you'll be heading in the opposite direction. because the grace of God has visited you. So when a person is saying, well, you know, it was very difficult, you know, everybody in my office, that's the way they live, you know, how could you be any different? Well, the reason is because God has not saved you. He's not visited you by his grace. So you are like them, and you will go to exactly the same place as them, you will go to hell. Your Christianity is only skin deep. It's not real. When it is real, God makes you different. And if you are in college, or university, or school, your friends will ask you the question, but you, why are you different? And your answer will not be, well, you know, us Tumbukas. That's the way we are. No. It will not be because my parents brought me up very well. It will be that God visited me by His grace. His favor came upon me and consequently my heart was changed. I once loved sin, I now hate it. I once wanted nothing to do with godliness, that is now my food and my drink. I want to be like God. Well, let's hurry on because Part of God's rescue plan, to get you out of the morally degenerate times in which you live, is to enter into a covenant relationship with you. That's part of His plan, His blueprint. And that's exactly what we notice here with respect to Noah, back to Genesis and Chapter 6. We read there in verse 18, God saying, But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives. Now this is the first time in the whole Bible that we come across the Hebrew word for covenant. And remember, we have already talked about something to that effect earlier on. So, the idea itself has already been there. But this is the first time in the Bible when the actual Hebrew word is used that we translate as covenant. And what I want you to notice again is that all the requirements are there. And at this stage, I'm primarily interested in The first requirement for a covenant, and you remember, well, the first requirement for faithfulness, and we say that it suggests two people, okay, or two groups, but at least two parties. And in this particular case, we've got God on the one hand, and Noah on the other. And God is specifically coming to Noah and saying, Noah, I have begun this rescue operation. I'm about to destroy everybody, in fact, everything that breathes. But I want to spare you. And for me to spare you, I'm about to make promises to you. I'm about to give you a responsibility, but I'm also about to make a promise to you. Now, because we read the Bible so much, we tend to take things for granted. Fine! He gave Noah the work that he had to do, to build an ark. And we have been singing, Noah built an ark, since our Sunday school days. He also promised him that once he had built the ark, he was going to cause two of each of the animals to make their way into the ark, which also happened. But the point I want to mention here is the amazing nature of this. Because, you know, God is God. He can recreate the world at the click of a finger. For Him to come down and begin to have such intimate dealings with us surely should surprise us. I mean, that's what children's fairy tale stories are all about. They're often about this little useless girl whom everybody is mistreating. She now looks terrible because of a terrible auntie or whoever, guardian who's favoring all the other children. And then this prince charming, this knight in shining armor arrives with a shoe and says, whoever fits into this shoe is mine. Okay. Those who went through nursery school, you're all smiling. The others are looking at me like, What is this all about? And all the other ladies try to fit in, almost cutting their feet with scissors. They are failing to fit in. Finally, the most despised little useless girl fits in, and her fortunes are completely changed. Who is it? All right, the children have answered. They've seen Cinderella. All right, thank you very much. Okay, you can go and Google and find out what it is all about. It's amazing. Even children are able to understand that. But you see, for us, it's God himself, the creator of the universe. coming down in this way, entering into covenant relationship with us, committing himself to be faithful to us for all time and for all eternity, surely it ought to constantly amaze us that he should be so good to us. I mean, if you were Noah, and you were given this promise, it makes sense why Noah became a preacher of righteousness Why he now went to everybody else and began to preach to them that they too might come into this ark because the living God, the creator of the heavens and the earth has come and made a promise. It's a living promise. It's true. And that's why I'm spending all my time putting up this ark. Because I believe him. He's been good to me. and therefore come and be rescued as well. Now it's at that point that the importance of faith and faithfulness come in. Remember what we said, covenant relationships demand faith and they demand for faithfulness. Because there will always be this period of absence, when temptation comes in to abandon the covenant. Let us follow Noah for a moment. He's built his ark, and he's built it in the midst of skepticism. People are laughing at him. saying to him, Mwana, where on earth is this thing called rain going to come from? For you to be building this big, big ship on top of land, where is this thing going to come from? He continues. Finally, he finishes building the ark. The animals begin to come in, and the birds, and the creeping creatures, two by two. He goes in. The door is shut. The rains begin to pour. I want to suggest to you that at that point, what mattered the most was not Noah's faithfulness. It was God's faithfulness. As the rains began to pour, and pour, and pour, for 40 days and 40 nights, and as the land began to disappear, because it was now all becoming ocean, As the last individuals were managing to get onto the highest mountains and finally also being drowned, until their voices could no longer be heard, Noah would have been asking himself the question, will these rains ever end? The answer lay in one area, if God is faithful. Because he's the one who made the promise. Well, a time came when the rains ended. It is estimated that it took approximately a whole year for the waters to finally subside. The food was limited in that ark. Otherwise, they were going to start saying, well, I think that chicken looks appetizing. They were going to turn to the animals that were there to be consumed. During the remainder of the period, until finally the dove went out and came back with a leaf to indicate that the waters had finally subsided. During that whole period, what stood between Noah and death was the faithfulness of God. Period! If God was not faithful, That would have been the end of the human race. That would have been the end of Noah. That would have been the end of the breath that was there in the animals, the human beings, etc. But, thank God, he was faithful. On Noah's side, there was only one thing to do, and it was this, to trust God. He made His promise, He will fulfill it. The seventh month, no land. Don't worry, God is faithful. The eighth month, no land. Don't worry, God is faithful. Thirty more days, nothing but the open sea. My wife, Don't worry, God is faithful. Eleventh month, nothing but sea. Shame, be quiet. God is faithful. Same thing for you, Ham. Until finally, land is sin. And brethren, Christianity is exactly the same way. We live our lives in the midst of skepticism, in the midst of people, some of them, yes, atheistic, saying there is no God. But others have a form of religion, but when it comes to the rubber hitting the road, when it comes to what really matters, they are the first ones to say, don't take your religion so seriously, you. Come on. Let's bend the rules a little bit here. Let's bend the middle there. Let's get on. It is in that context that we live, and we live out our faith. We live in a context where the promises of God are about waiting to be fulfilled. And ours is to trust that He is a faithful God. He never changes. And consequently, we will still go against the grain of our society. We will remain faithful even if it costs us. We will still worship Him because He is a faithful God. And in the end, He will honor His word. God is in covenant relationship with us through His Son, Jesus Christ. It's because of that that Jesus died. It's because of that that He was raised from the dead. The blood that He shed is the blood of the same covenant that we are in. And therefore, we need to continue recognizing that ours is a covenant making God and a covenant keeping God. As it was with Noah, finally a day came when that door could be pushed open and the ark was on dry land. God had proved himself faithful. And as we will go on to notice, he goes on to renew his covenant with Noah when they come out of the ark. But that will be for next time. There are two lessons I think we need to learn from this. The first is that God is our example. You see, Christianity is about becoming godly. That's what it is. And becoming godly means becoming more and more like God. And one of the ways in which that godliness ought to come through is that we ought to be a covenant-making and a covenant-keeping people. Deliberately so. We ought to pride ourselves that that's the way we are. We have made our promises, we rejoice in making those promises, and we rejoice in keeping those promises, no matter what happens. That's Christianity. That's Christianity. Now clearly, we make promises in a number of ways. One of them is to do with marriage. And again, as I said, in marriage we are often apart from one another. But surely, when we're apart from one another, it doesn't mean we can now, like the world, say, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, free for all. No. Even if our workmen are having free for all, we have to say to them, me, there is someone I made a promise to. And deliberately so. And I rejoice in being faithful to that promise. That's how we are different from the rest of the world. Similarly, a number of us are in employment situations, contract situations, where our employers are not there. They've sent us off elsewhere. And you know how the people of the world, that's the point at which they really cheat. I often smile when I drive to petrol stations near here, the Ugas know me, but further away. And when you put in fuel, you say, I want a cash sale. They ask you, how much should I write? Have you forgotten how much I gave you? So you begin to realize that it's the normal thing around here, that people put in little and then they beef up the figures and they give a tip to the guys at feeding stations and so forth. But for those of us who are Christians, that is not even an option. I remain faithful to my covenant obligations. My contractual obligation, the fact that my supervisor or my boss is not here does not mean that the cart is away and consequently the mice can begin to play. I must remain faithful. I want to remain faithful because I want to be like God. I am Godly, or at least I want to be. It's the same with respect to ourselves as church members. We are not always with our elders. We are not always with brothers and sisters in the Lord. When the services end, we scatter. But if we are truly godly, we don't need to have a brother in the Lord, or a sister in the Lord, or the elders near me, in order to be faithful to my covenant obligations. It's the internal godliness that still makes us consistent. And it is that which obviously scandalizes the church when a brother is now, or a sister, is caught with evidence that they were living a life that was the opposite of what they had promised within the context of the church. So you begin to say, now, is this Christianity serious? Because it's supposed to be from inside out. We're supposed to be like God. Period. And as I often like to apply, apply to the context of church finances. Because to me, it's a scandal. And that's the right word. It's a scandal. If a church introduces an envelope system with names on it and they're giving doubles. It becomes a scandal. Because what it simply means is that half of the people are not godly. They're not god-like. Because surely, if they were God-like, they don't need somebody sort of saying, hey, yeah, you got paid. Come on, come on. Put the money here. Put. Huh? What do you mean you haven't paid school fees? Put. You are in covenant agreement. You put. You don't need people like that. You should be able to say, I am in covenant agreement. This is how much I have pledged to give, and this is the tithe I will give. Period. No spiritual policeman. Because there is godliness. And the godliness is from the inside out. Therefore our missionaries can be with Noah in the ark and they don't even have to worry because they have kindred souls, godly souls that have said to them, go, we will take care of your material needs so they can relax. Knowing the Church of God comprises faithful people, we don't need to have ulcers and nightmares. They will be faithful. After all, they are godly. God is our example. Are we following His example? Do we pride ourselves in being godly, and consequently being faithful, and consequently being different from everybody else? Do we? Another obvious application is to do with Him being faithful to us. And it's the fact that we can trust Him. And that's the reason why He calls all of us to repentance and faith, to trust His promises in salvation. Are you, as an individual, chained to one form of sin or the other? And it's dragging you down. It's destroying your life. Well, He's provided a Savior in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ. Call on Him. Trust Him. Believe in Him. He is faithful. He says, whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. He shall certainly not be put to shame. Put Him to the test. Come before Him with all your sin, with all your burden, and see whether He will not lift you up He has done so for many others who have come to Him either with the chains of sin or with the guilt of sin, knowing that with that guilt they will perish in hell. They have called on Him and experienced not only liberation from the power of sin, but also liberation from the guilt of sin. So you don't need to be here today and still go home in sin when there is such a God, a God who deliberately says to you, trust me, trust me. Trust my faithfulness. It's part of my character. Others can be unfaithful. I will never be unfaithful. Trust my promises. Today, if you call on His name, He will truly save you. And consequently, you can join the band of thousands upon thousands and tens of thousands upon tens of thousands who are marching towards heaven, knowing very well the God who causes his son to rise and set literally every day and as we shall come to learn next week the God who has caused his rainbow to cover the earth is one who will keep his promise and on the judgment day I will not need to be ashamed he will bring me into his heaven because I have trusted in his son Jesus Christ Will you trust Him today? Will you trust Him today? Or will you spit upon such a faithful God who delivered Noah after a solid year of waiting, locked up in an ark? Will you not trust Him too? to bring your soul to heaven, to rescue you from the sinful and immoral world. Amen.